


Triptych

by secace



Category: Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms
Genre: Deconstruction, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, Power Imbalance, Unhealthy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secace/pseuds/secace
Summary: He was completely silent for a beat, looked right at her face, rudeness born so obviously of artlessness no one could be offended. Then with an expression of stunned mortification, he knelt low. “My Lady.”When it became clear he was not going to answer, she asked again. “Who is your lady, Sir?”“I don’t have one,” he admitted, as if this revealed some deep character flaw. “My- My Queen.”
Relationships: Guinevere/Arthur Pendragon, Guinevere/Lancelot du Lac, Guinevere/Lancelot du Lac/Arthur Pendragon, Lancelot du Lac/Arthur Pendragon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Triptych

“Kneel, Sir Lancelot,” The King said as he entered the throne room. “You have been absent from Us again.”

He was already kneeling, too low, so low the curious watchful eyes turned their gazes to a distant nothing, the room echoing with silence and the shifting of silk on marble and stone and restless skin. There were always blades on waists at Camelot, but moments like these every single one screamed its presence. “My Lord.”

“We hope this time you return with only your own name, Mal Fet,” The tone was teasing, almost fond. A titter went through the room, spotted with shocked silence from those who knew the epithet was hard bought and cut deep.

“No, my Lord.”

“What adventures have you to regale us, good knight? Rise, tell the court.” The King leaned forward, alert, interested in the way he wasn’t for tax revenue and agricultural growth and distant border tensions. 

But he would be disappointed. “I have no good stories for you my lord. Only hard riding and petty squabbles and bad weather to keep me away.”

“Is that all?” A new voice broke through. “Then you must stay awhile.”

Lancelot looked up at the queen for a moment as if overcome, before quickly darting his eyes back to the floor. “If it please thee, my lady.”

“It would please us both,” the King said, implicit command. “The court is dismissed for the day, business is over. We must hold a feast, to celebrate the return of the best knight in the land.”

Advisors and accountants shuffled out, courtiers stood at attention, and the king and queen departed.

Lancelot retreated to his chambers to change out of riding clothes, and wait to be summoned. A good knight waited to be summoned. A good knight lived to serve his lord and his lady. And Sir Lancelot was the best.

He was summoned, and he did not wonder who he went to. 

“Where were you, Lancelot?” Arthur asked, and he sounded so concerned. “Its been nearly a year. Too long you’ve been out of my arms.”  _ Out of my hands. _

“I am sorry, my lord. I was injured.” A weak apology. But that always led to--

“Show me.” The Lord sat on a low backless couch, ringed hands laced, legs uncrossed. Slowly, mechanically, Lancelot approached and knelt, slipped out of most of the fine clothes he’d just changed into -- and wasn’t that the way of things?-- until the bandages circling his waist like vultures over a dying thing were flush only against the chill air.

“How did this happen, Lancelot?”

If he were good with words, he might weave a story of magic and intrigue, brave knights and beautiful ladies and things beyond men from a time before the Romans, before iron. But he was not. If he had the politique of his lady, he would say it was defending his lord, defending Logres. But he didn’t have it yet, the bright naivety faded to grey, but not hardened into black.

“A stupid quarrel over nothing with a man who won’t be missed in a town that isn’t on maps. Several months ago. I rode to an abbey and left as soon as I could travel, My Lord.”

_ Tell me I did well,  _ his mind supplied,  _ tell me I was loyal and good and brave for you.  _ He wasn’t so young to think it uncritically, but the ghost of his Bel Inconnu wouldn´t quiet.

Arthur said nothing but carded his fingers through Lancelot’s loose hair. There came the sound of bare feet on stone.

“My Lady,” Lancelot muttered, tasting profanity on his tongue. Against her, the Lord or his Lord, it didn’t matter anymore.

Guinevere didn’t stop in the doorway, pacing the length of the room to stand beside them.

“My Lady,” Arthur said, careful censure. 

“You were gone for a year. Did you expect when you returned to see me--”  _ Flayed, my nails torn off, my head on the city gates, banished and dead on the side of the road.  _ But she couldn’t say that. “Did you think I would be pleased with you? Or did you not think of me at all?”

A cruel thing to say, but a safer one for both of them.

“I'm  _ sorry _ my Lady, my Lord--!” He gasped at the tug on his hair.

“The Lady is displeased,” Arthur teased. “You must beg her forgiveness. Go to her, Sir knight.”

Loyally he rose, took her hand, soft and still in his as a dead dove. “My Lady, please forgive me.”

“You’re no good with words, Lancelot,” Arthur said, the light humour still in his voice, a good thing to keep there. 

“My Lady, please accept a-- a kiss from me,” he asked, and she caught his gaze and held it, for a long frozen moment, her whim seemed to waver, with him caught at her beck.

Then, mercy. “I will accept it.”

He kissed her, long and deep, and she had missed him. Or missed kissing someone who wasn’t her husband, someone who yielded.

“Your injury only laid you low for a few months, you said.” Arthur pointed out, still seated. “So why were you gone a year?”

Lancelot broke away to answer, and Guinevere caught his lips with her own before he could. 

“Answer me.”

But he lacked the breath for it, couldn’t bring himself to ask her to stop when he didn’t want her to. She wouldn't give her husband an inch of quarter 

“My Lord,” was all he managed, torn from his throat.

“That’s all you know how to say. My lord, my lady. If you won’t speak anything interesting, at least do it.”

“I’m sorry, my Lord,” he said, and she stepped away.

Arthur frowned. “Or that. Always I’m sorry, never thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

This wasn’t fair. Lancelot felt unfairness very keenly, and said nothing.

“What are you getting at Arthur? You’re quarrelsome tonight,” Guinevere said sharply.

Finally, Arthur stood. “I’m getting at the fact that I don’t think our loyal knight is all that loyal. Have you no love in your heart, Lancelot?”

“My Lord,” he said tightly. And if Arthur were wiser or more attentive he may have let off at the tone.

“Did all the cheering of crowds go to your head?” The teasing remained, with none of the fondness.

“No, my Lord.” 

“Arthur--” Guinevere said warningly, but did not interfere. She took one step back.

Arthur put a hand on his knight’s bare arm, not gripping tightly but gently. “Haven’t I given you every reason to stay here? Rewarded you for loyal service? What other Lord would let you have my Lady? Didn’t you say that you loved me?” And there was an earnestness in his voice, something like pleading in his face. Lancelot said nothing, but shivered at the hand that ran down his chest, stomach, rested at his waist. “Haven’t I given you everything you wanted? Even what you feared to ask for?”

He swallowed hard, flushed. “My Lord.”

“You’ll just as soon kill him for it, if you grow bored,” Guinevere said, like a sudden clap of thunder splitting the still air.  _ Like you grow bored of me. _ “When he isn’t so terribly young and handsome, and the best knight in the world.”

There’s nothing a man hates to hear but the truth. “Your tongue is best occupied with other matters, my Queen.”

With a grim smile like a knife, she took his advice, reversing her move two turns past and capturing Lancelot in an embrace. For a long moment, the room was gone, except the stone under his feet, and Guinevere and her arms around his neck, and the hands at his waist dipping below, and he could surrender to the push and pull of the tides, a safe way for the waves to crash and settle and not be angry anymore. 

“Stop,” he said, “please stop.” A dangerous thing to say; until he said it, it could be assumed to be obeyed, assumed safety. Hands retreated. Lips parted from his.

“You’re crying,” his Lady said. “Does your injury plague you?”

An easy way out. A gift. 

Lancelot Du Lac would never think himself a wise man. “No, my Lady, I am well.”

“What is your quarrel, Lancelot,” Arthur said sharply, with the anger that comes from fear. 

“You aren’t fair to me, my Lord,” he would never have said if he wasn’t so tired, and the injustice didn’t needle him more than anyone else.

“I’m fairer than you deserve.” 

And to this, he couldn’t respond.

“You’re never fair, Arthur,” Guinevere said calmly.

He sneered. “What complaint do you have? I saved you from nothing. I let you make me a cuckold and spit your venom and weave your little webs. I made you a queen.”

“You don’t ‘let me’ do anything,” She laughed mirthlessly. Perhaps tired, too. “You like to watch me fuck him.”

“Stop,” Lancelot said again, quiet enough they could pretend they didn’t hear him. 

Arthur’s face was red now with anger, and she’d gone too far, shown too much of her hand. He opened his mouth to speak, rage growing up like a storm cloud on the horizon.

“Stop!”

They looked at Lancelot for the first time all day. “Are you going to run off for another year, to the loving bosom of abbeys and maidens and strange knights?” Arthur asked, still not hearing it. “Missing your wife?”

There was a silence, a shock, the stillness after a wave cresting. He didn’t know. He wouldn’t say it if he knew. He wouldn’t, Lancelot thought. He didn’t know.

And Guinevere said nothing, now, looking sick and helpless and  _ angry.  _

“I wish I had never come here.” From anyone else, his voice would drip with rage, bitterness, hatred, despair. But it was only a statement of fact.

“Then get out,” Arthur said, to both of them. Again, “Get out!”

Lancelot fled, ever the observer of orders. Guinevere paused at the door. She looked for anger in Arthur’s face, and saw terror.

“Every time you leave for war I hope you don’t come back.” Then she was gone.

* * *

They had met and married in May. She was young and lively and the most beautiful girl in the world and her father was rich. If Merlin hadn’t forbidden the idea of marriage entirely, it likely never would have happened. But he had, and in a bullheaded attempt to bury the boy-king, Arthur went to Leodegrance, and got a lovely table as a dowry on top of his satisfaction.

So Logres crowned its teenaged queen. She went to Camelot with her hair bound tightly, her eyes watching, thin white fingers hidden in the folds of her dress. She was not loved, at first. There were many ladies who’d rather see the king married to them or their daughters.

Guinevere tried to make peace with them, and tried to come to love her husband. 

It did not seem an impossible task. He was far from old, only a little over a decade since the fateful tournament, and far from ugly. He had ambitions beyond reigning long and decadently, spoke of justice and change. And did not laugh at the thought of discussing it with her, didn’t value her advice but did hear it. The king wanted her to love him, more than that to  _ like _ him. Her situation could be far worse, and with dedication, could be made better.

It took only three months for her to be accused of adultery. She remained calm, through great effort, and faith in her own innocence, and in her husband’s belief in a fair trial and his love for her.

Shock, mainly, was what maintained her look of calm when he sentenced her to die without hearing a word. It was only luck, and the mercy of his Marshal, that saved her. 

_ You wouldn’t lie to me, Bedivere. You are loyal to me. The queen will be released. _

The next day, nothing was different, except that the vipers were blooded, watched her now knowing that when the scene played again, she would fall. That night, she crept from her husband’s bed to the chapel and wept, her fist pressed against her lips to be silent. 

And then Queen Guinevere set to making her own court. She made secrets her currency, deception her domain, bound her hair tight and high, stopped lining her eyes like a Roman lady, begun painting her skin like a Briton. The co-conspirator she found was a bitter northern pagan with blood on his hands and anger in his clever eyes, and she valued him. But he played his own games, bound in his own passions. 

Guinevere needed a knight with both the might to defend her and the heart for hopeless loyalty, whose devotion wasn’t spread so thin.

For her two year anniversary, her husband gifted her a fine necklace, fit only for a queen, on ostentatious display that could buy an army. It had been made for his sister, the old dowager told her, a birthday present never given for obvious reasons.

His sister Morgan was a teacher, they said, of magic and medicine and old tongues. To Arthur, she taught that anyone close enough to trust was close enough to betray. It would be easier to resent her for that. And sometimes she wanted so badly to have a direction to point her troubles at; certainly that was what Arthur used his sister for. 

But Guinevere had better things to occupy her mind and her time that pointless resentment.

“I cannot hold fast anymore,” Lady Elaine the Peerless said, though in this respect her title was shockingly unfit. “I cannot live with that man,”

“Oh dear,” said Guinevere softly, with a subtle glance around them. But there was no one else in the solar who heard.

Elaine leaned forward confidentially. “I have heard that Lady Morgan takes all such women in, and treats them well.”

“I had heard.” Had considered, daily, almost. “It is a tempting idea.”

“I know how to find her,” Elaine offered, the relief of a co-conspirator bright in her eyes.

Guinevere looked from Elaine to the solar, out the wide bright windows to the bustling court beneath, the lands stretching out beyond either horizon. All of them hers. She turned back to Elaine and smiled.

“I have an alternative plan. Now, listen to me…”

* * *

It was just after her two year anniversary that a young man arrived in court. He was fast and strong but more than that he was skilled, moved like no other man to bear arms. He didn’t have a name, he was young and naive and painfully shy and he idolized her. 

If it weren’t for her husband’s paranoid questions, the knives closing in and the whispers at her back urging her on, she would have felt guilty.

“You’re very good, Sir,” she said, meeting him in the garden, a not-coincidence. “You must fight for a lady, to be so daring?”

He was completely silent for a beat, looked right at her face, rudeness born so obviously of artlessness no one could be offended. Then with an expression of stunned mortification, he knelt low. “My Lady.”

When it became clear he was not going to answer, she asked again. “Who is your lady, Sir?”

“I don’t have one,” he admitted, as if this revealed some deep character flaw. “My- My Queen.”

“That is a great pity,” she watched his reaction, the shameful flush in his cheeks. She couldn’t be more than two years his senior, but she had never been so callow, so easy to read. 

“I-- you could be my lady,” he suggested, impolitic, impolite, a stumble that could get him killed. 

“I might, for a jest.” 

From then forward, the name of the game was plausible deniability. Keep him in love, and thinking she might return that feeling, without committing the very crime his purpose was to protect her from. 

She did not love him, of course. But as a few months turned into a few years, as he saved her from kidnappers, marital and otherwise, as she saved him in court, she grew fond of him, even learned his name, a carefully guarded thing. 

Lancelot had reason to be guarded. He gave her all his secrets, though she gave few in return. All she learned was his naivete was anything but lack of acquaintance with the world’s cruelty. 

The way he winced at every touch and glance was far from the most detrimental of his manners at court. He had none of the cultured intelligence they valued, though Guinevere had come to admire the base cleverness he displayed. To say his emotions were worn on his sleeve was an understatement of the highest degree. He wept openly and frequently at nothing, went mute with no warning at the least opportune times, and couldn't be convinced to stop glancing at her.

So Queen Guinevere perhaps should have known long before she did that Lancelot was sleeping with her husband.

* * *

Lancelot came to court without a sword, or a shield, or a name. What he had was too many stories of loyal knights and fair ladies, too many hopes that weighed terribly heavy. He had more prowess than years, and was weak with it.

And when he slipped, barely noticed, into the halls of Camelot and saw the king and queen beside each other, noble and resplendent in the golden light, he had a malignant love, despite himself, that would not be shaken. 

Almost without his understanding of how, he stopped being no one and became Sir Lancelot, the champion of the queen, one of the best knights of King Arthur. Desired of maidens admired by kings, and still wanting everything he couldn’t have and didn’t deserve. 

More trust meant more turmoil;  _ escort the queen on May Day, sit with me at the high table, ride for us in the tournament, keep her company in the solar while you heal, help me with my armour--  _ he was neither skilled nor accustomed to lying, but it filled his days now. 

He lied even to himself, internal damage control for the image of Camelot he wanted so badly to be true. The good king fought only to protect his people, the good queen was loyal and gentle, the good knights were noble protectors, and all the people Lancelot had killed defending this vision deserved to die.

“The northerners are grumbling of rebellion again,” The King told him in confidence. An honour he knew he had no right to, but would have fought to keep. 

“What are you going to do?” Lancelot asked, running his fingers over the fine fabric of the couch in the royal sitting room. An obvious question, a stupid question, he had no diplomatic or political advice to draw on. The brief interim before response was painful, and he cursed himself for not having the mind for better conversation, sure Arthur would grow impatient and make him leave. 

“Put them down like last time, I expect,” Arthur said mildly, and Lancelot let out a silent sigh of relief, barely hearing the words. “I’m sure I can count on victory, with you at my side.”

“Yes, my Lord, I-- always,” Lancelot said quickly, then froze. He was speaking out of turn, surely, wasting the favour he didn’t deserve. But Arthur merely nodded, so much more patient, Lancelot thought, than he deserved. “Thank you.”

“My courtiers have been murmuring,” Arthur said sardonically, as if to say what they said was no matter. Guinevere would have said it was a matter, but-- Lancelot merely nodded. “They question the way you look at the good queen.”

“I-- my lord.” It was half a strangled cry, frozen in his chest. Often he would be told, by such persons he had not asked, that he might be perfectly made were it not that his bust was too large. Guinevere said it was to house his heart, which was too large itself. She said it like a warning. Was this what she was warning him of? This terror?

“Have you sinned against me, Lancelot? I’m not angry,” Arthur assured him. He was not assured. He wanted so badly to say no and not be lying. He was so tired of lying. He was so tired, suddenly, and wanted more than anything to be alone in the wild, to curl up in his cloak and sleep in the grass. Again, he rubbed his fingers nervously over the fabric as if to banish the imagined sensation of the dew and earth on his skin

“Only-- only in thought. Not in deed.” His mouth felt dry. He was sure his face was horribly pale. “Not with the Queen.”

Arthur was seated across from him, but very close, closer than Lancelot had thought before. “Then how have you sinned against me in thought, my knight?”

Distantly, as if through a veil, Lancelot heard buildings collapse. He had come so far. He had tried to be good. “Please do not ask me to-- to say, I-- I’m afraid you will hate me.”

“Oh?” Arthur looked only amused. “Don’t look so grim, I may be more receptive than you believe. In fact, may I guess?”

How could he be refused anything? Lancelot nodded, looking down still at his hands, tracing the scars which were blurry in his sight. He couldn’t tell if they were shaking or he was weeping. 

“You would not betray me,” Arthur said, almost to himself. Lancelot stilled, as the king reached out, gently tilted up his chin to look him in the eyes. Then, deliberately, when Lancelot did not flinch, he leaned forward, and brought their lips together, almost chaste. Not quite. Too quickly, he drew back, smiled with wry challenge. “Was I right?”

“Yes,” Lancelot gasped, and kissed him again, not remotely chaste. 

The next morning, he found the lying was not to abate. Guinevere asked if he was well, and they were in private, and his traitorous tongue would not tell her.

She was the cleverest woman alive, Lancelot thought, but he knew how to be quiet when he needed to be. So he stayed at court, for a while, and won tournaments, and Arthur was pleased and Guinevere was safe and he was still the best knight in the world, and his lady was the loveliest. The court he served was noble, the king good and wise. He could say this to himself, for a while.

The man who hated to lie kept his secret, in the end. A secret is not so important to a king as it is to a man, and this one was spilled simply for the sake of someone who was kind to him. Lancelot hadn’t planned to be gone for a year, he swore to himself and to Arthur. Hadn’t planned to be so affected by something as simple as gentleness he didn’t deserve and worship he understood far too well from the opposite side. 

He hadn’t planned to be away so long, and had to hurry home, his mother said. She did not speak to him often, anymore, just warnings, and condolences. Lancelot made it back just in time, as he always did, as he was meant to, before Guinevere could be anything but terrorized. As she was meant to be. The play Arthur had planned ran its course, but maybe this time he wasn't sufficiently chastised. He remembered soft blankets and sweet temper too clearly to go back to before, and said something like that, in private. Just the three of them.

And Arthur laughed, and was afraid, and said obscene things that were undeniably true. And if Lancelot had resisted a return to blind normalcy, Arthur had granted his request. 

So he stayed in sharp-edged Camelot, and the other place crumbled into dust and the stillness of graves and he mourned, but quietly. Guinevere did not speak to him very often, and neither did Arthur, really, for all they saw each other. He won tournaments. They fought. He was married, and unmarried, and after a long time returned. 

He still lied. 

“A stupid quarrel over nothing with a man who won’t be missed in a town that isn’t on maps. Several months ago. I rode to an abbey and left as soon as I could travel, My Lord.”

Things like that. Perhaps he would tell Guinevere the truth, later. She was speaking to him again. She knew how marriage went. He had left the room first, after the argument, but floundered in the corridor, directionless. Guinevere had direction, and let him follow her to her private gardens. It was quiet there. The air was sweet and still.

“Impolitic,” Guinevere said to the roses, more chiding herself than him. Nevertheless it stung. He sat heavily on a stone bench. Lately, he was so tired. Of court, of them, of himself, or tournaments and blood and crying. He was crying.

Guinevere sat beside him, hands folded in her lap, saying nothing. She knew well enough not to touch him at these times, or try to prompt him to speak. It was, anyway, the safest way he lost himself, for everyone-- much better for him to emerge sitting next to her, tearstained and shaky, than somewhere strange and covered in blood.

“I am sorry,” he said much later, eyes red and throat sore and still so tired. “I’m not a very good liar.”

“You shouldn’t have to be.” Not that this mattered. “Go to bed, Lancelot, In your own rooms, or Gawain’s palette, or under a tree in this garden. Good evening.” 

She left him there, retreating to her bower. 

* * *

Lancelot didn’t listen to her advice, or if he did, he woke up restless. The king was angry. People were talking. He didn’t like when they did that.

“How could you do this?” she asked him, angry herself now. His silent footsteps in her bower left tracks of blood.

“I-- I just was trying to keep you safe,” he said miserably.

“Killing anyone who’s rude to me doesn't keep me safe,” she pointed out bitterly. “Don’t you think I have enough enemies? Maybe you can afford to make them but I can’t.”

“I just want--”

She cut him off. “You want to hurt people, because you like it. Be honest to yourself if you can’t be with me.”

“I don’t,” he murmured, and maybe he really believed it. “I love you.” Maybe he believed this too. 

“You should leave.”

He left. He always went too far. 

* * *

The corridor was empty and quiet and dark, and no one should see him like this. He thought to curl into one of the stone alcoves and go to sleep there and let the blood and dust and smoke from the lone torch settle around him and turn him to stone. It wasn’t so terrible a thought, to be a sleeping statue forever.

The moment passed, he heard a familiar voice. “Lancelot.”

He turned, after a moment, but didn’t say anything.

“Are you injured?” Arthur asked. “Or is that… someone else.”

Lancelot idly fiddled with the silver ring on his hand. “Ah-- someone else. I wanted to-- I was trying--”

“It is your duty to protect the reputation of the crown,” Arthur told him. “You did well.” 

“I-- my lord.” And he was a fool, and not naive anymore, and there must be another better Lancelot somewhere who would-- he didn’t know. Be better.

“Come, I’ll help you neaten up,” Arthur offered, gestured down the corridor. Safety from eyes and tongues and hands and being a statue. Arthur could be magnanimous when he was afraid, he could be gentle when he was contrite. Lancelot followed him. That was what he did, after all. 

And the next morning, Guinevere might deal out her secrets and smooth over the mess, and show everyone that they needed her. The push and pull would rock back into motion like waves, and all three of them would be trapped on their waterlogged vessel forever. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> im not trying to like start fights lol i just thought huh, this relationship seems like it could have some deeply bad and interesting dynamics.. and i created this. please enjoy or dont <3


End file.
